Gloucester mail carriers win harassment claim

November 20, 2012|By Matt Sabo, msabo@dailypress.com | 757-247-7872

GLOUCESTER — A group of seven former and current rural female mail carriers working out of the Hayes Post Office won a collective $519,000 judgment against the U.S. Postal Service earlier this summer over claims they were subjected to continuing sexual harassment, disparaging and offensive comments and verbal and physical intimidation by a male co-worker and bosses who failed to take action on their complaints.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission affirmed in July an earlier 2011 ruling on the case that was first filed on Feb. 23, 2008, awarding the money to the women and another $374,000 to the attorneys for the women, according to EEOC documents.

The documents tell a story of vile comments and brutish actions from a former male co-worker that went unchecked by post office superiors going back to 2003, even after complaints had been lodged by the women to multiple office and district managers.

The seven Gloucester women, Gail Brunjes, Jeannette French, Michelle Laign-Robbins, Kimberly Leggett, Linda Marshall, Anna Maria Sturgeon and Nina Whitmore describe in court documents suffering from physical ailments and mental and emotional trauma as a result of the harassment. All but Sturgeon and French no longer work at the Hayes Post Office.

All of the women were rural carriers except for Sturgeon, who was a substitute carrier. In the 2008 complaint, the women said the male co-worker's abusive behavior included repeated comments of a sexual nature, particularly about their breasts.

He also frequently made disparaging remarks about women — they should be "barefoot and pregnant" and not in the work place, he would say — and he told one woman he wished her sister who was sick with cancer would hurry up and die because he was sick of hearing about her illness, according to EEOC documents.

He also hid mail from the women and purposely delayed the performance of their duties up to three times a week and on another occasion he threw a stack of mail tubs across the room, according to EEOC documents. On other occasions he blocked the back door so the women could not enter the building and told the women he had ways of getting back at them without getting caught, according to EEOC documents.

The male co-worker denied the allegations levied by the women, according to court documents. He no longer works in the Hayes Post Office.

Laura O'Reilly, an attorney representing the women, said they had reported the employee's conduct to the postmaster of the Hayes Post Office for several years and later to a district manager in 2007.

"Things were done but nothing was effective," O'Reilly said.

The mail carriers were fired in March 2008 for disrupting mail service on Feb. 4, 2008, when the women suffered a group breakdown and became physically sick or suffered panic attacks or emotional outbursts, according to EEOC documents. Leggett said she was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Leggett, a 25-year mail carrier, said in addition to the rude comments and threats, the letter carriers worked with their backs to their male co-worker and he would slam things, throw things and rattle cages, leaving the workers on edge, Leggett said.